Here Maps review: Here gets you there, but it's not perfect

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The GoodNokia's Here Maps app has good local search, directions for driving, walking, and public transit, and a great way to save locations in collections.

The BadThere is no visual component like Street View or 3D views. The app bumps you to Safari for full reviews of locations. The app feels like a Web-based option.

The Bottom LineThe Here Maps app does a pretty good job with most of what you would want in a navigation app, but various issues and a lack of visual options like Street View make it only a passable substitute for what is already available.

Review Sections

Nokia's Here Maps app covers the navigation basics fairly well, but various issues in this early iteration make it a poor substitute for either Google's Web-based offering, Apple's Maps app, or even other third-party map and search options.

Map views
You have a number of options for viewing maps. A layers button in the lower right brings up a menu with two buttons at the top for switching between map views and toggling traffic incidents. Map viewing options let you choose between standard map, satellite, public transit, and Live traffic views. Most work as you would expect, but in my particular location in the San Francisco Bay Area, the public transit view only showed the light rail (BART), but had no bus maps or information. When you search for a location and choose public transit, the app will show you bus lines to take on your route, but it seems odd to have a dedicated public transit view layer if you're not going to show all the public transit information.

The Traffic view section lets you toggle traffic incidents like accidents, congestion, and construction that show up as icons to give you advance warning on the map. The app shows heavy traffic spots using yellow and red overlay lines on the route, though it was unreliable in my testing, sometimes giving no indicators when the traffic was obviously bad (Nokia admits this feature is still in beta).

It's important to note that the Here app does not have options for either 3D views like Apple Maps or Street View from Google Maps, so if you were hoping to get Street View back, you're not going to find those type of features here.

Search tools
The Here Maps app has most of the features you would expect, but at this early stage, it's not perfect. You can search for businesses, common search terms (such as "pizza"), and specific addresses using a standard search field, and the app shows you the locations on a map. From there, you can get a suggested route to your destination for driving, walking, or public transit. The directions seem mostly reliable, but in my testing I got a walking route for a nearby destination that gave me a roundabout path when a more direct path was available. It may have been an anomaly, because most directions I tested seem solid, but it's worth noting.

Also noteworthy is that there are no turn-by-turn directions with voice for driving, but the Here app does include them for walking directions. The voice directions for pedestrians require a quick download within the app to activate. The male voice used is clear and easy to understand and sounds more naturally conversational than it does robotic as it gives each direction on your journey.